Versova beach before and after. Photo: Waking Times
Beach cleanups are good things. They’re fun, they make a difference, and damn it, you leave feeling good about yourself. Of course, there’s so much shit floating around out there that it’s a never ending battle, but still. They’re good things. Recently, a very, very good thing happened in Mumbai, India: the largest beach cleanup in history.
Back in October of 2015, a lawyer named Afroz Shah noticed that his local sandy stretch, Versova Beach, was a shithole. With help from 84-year-old neighbor Harbansh Mathur, he began picking up the garbage. “Every weekend since, Shah has inspired volunteers to join him – from slum-dwellers to Bollywood stars, from schoolchildren to politicians,” wrote the UN. “They have been turning up at Versova for what Shah calls ‘a date with the ocean’, but what in reality means laboring shin-deep in rotting garbage under the scorching Indian sun.” Now, after nearly two years, the beach is completely different. It’s sandy.
Shah’s movement quickly gained steam. Thousands of volunteers from the northwestern section of Mumbai came out to help and didn’t stop helping. All in all, the 85-week beach cleanup removed a staggering 11 million pounds of trash from the beach and its surrounding feeder sources. Want to hear something depressing, though? According to Waking Times, that’s about half of the garbage that Mumbai produces every single day.
Volunteers removed 4,000 tons of trash from this beach, making it the world’s largest beach cleanup. pic.twitter.com/p7j45zWaoI
— AJ+ (@ajplus) May 31, 2017
The United Nations Environment Program awarded Shah with one of their highest accolades, the Champions of the Earth, and as it turns out, he’s been doing shit like this for a while. When he was 17 years old, he noticed that the mangroves near his home were being choked with trash. Since mangroves need the water to move in and out, he rented a machine and dug a channel that would improve the water flow to them.
The Versova cleanup is a testament to what’s possible when people come together with a common interest. A few other countries have taken a page out of his book and started their own efforts; South Africa, Yemen, and Southeast Asia are all doing similar projects.
Of course, the problem isn’t going anywhere. Beach cleanups are a never-ending battle, and they will be until the flow of trash is stopped at the source. Which, in our current society, is nearly impossible. “Apart from just collecting garbage from the shoreline, collection needs to happen at the source,” said UNEP executive director Erik Solheim. “The government needs to educate people and provide techniques for recycling.”
